CDP is facilitating analysis around the exposure of companies and investor portfolios to carbon risk through strengthening the accuracy and completeness of the GHG emissions data available to investors. Beginning in 2015, it has developed an annual quality reviewed (clean) and complete corporate GHG emissions dataset. The 2016 version has built upon the original foundations of transparency, robust methods and value to investors while covering a wider universe of companies, integrating more relevant data points and expanding upon the types and pedigrees of the models used for estimation. This work has been supported by CDP’s Technical Advisory Committee (Data), which provided expert advice during the course of the initial project.

Methods

The methods used for producing the 2016 Clean & Complete Dataset (CCDS) are broken into four documents: The CCDS-Main paper provides a summary of the end-to-end development while each of the Technical Annexes delves into methods employed during the different process steps, from data cleaning to estimation using bottom-up and statistical approaches.

The application of this fully transparent methodology has been targeted at CDP’s 2016 Carbon Action sample of companies – a group of 1,300 of the highest-emitting public companies on which the investor-led Carbon Action Initiative focuses – and constituents of the MSCI All-Country World Index (ACWI) – a widely used international index covering around 85% of the investable equity universe1. CDP’s Investor Members enjoy full access to the dataset, which contains:

Additionally, energy and emissions intensities are provided per unit of physical output for companies in high emitting sectors.

The data are input to the final dataset through a number of streams, including CDP responses, data collected from company filings, data sent directly to CDP’s Data Team, and estimates where no self-reported data were locatable. The total Scope 1 emissions encapsulated in the dataset are approximately 10.9 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent, representing one-fifth of global annual GHG emissions.